Honest questions

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Is expression of anger
due to some misconceived threat perception right?

To
get angry at wrong doings is good. To get angry at any real or perceived threat
to our security is not just good but our duty and right as well. But we are
justified to express it or raise our voice only when we have been actively and forcefully
expressing, if not our rage, at least our angst at other real and much more damaging
issues like food adulteration, water pollution, rampant corruption and many
others. One such very grave but most neglected problem is that of road
accidents. For a minute put aside some perceived or probable but comparatively
distant threats including terrorism, communal riots and mob-lynching, and think
about the real threat lurking at our doorstep every hour of the day in various
forms — a drunk driver, a speeding vehicle, an open drain hole, a large pot
hole etc. One never knows when he or his kin will be drawn into a road accident
without any fault from his side.

No other threat to life is real and greater
than this because the maximum number of deaths in our country is due to road
accidents. In 2015 as many as 146,133
people were killed in India,
an increase of 4.6% on the previous year. In 2016 the number was 147913 (or
12326 per month or 405 per day). This means accidents are killing more people
in India
than terrorism or natural disasters and yet we never talk about them and get
angry at the system that helps perpetuate the threat instead of trying to remove
it.

More than half of the people killed in
more than 500,000 road accidents were aged 15-34. Thirteen states, including
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh,
Karnataka, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, accounted for more than 80% of all road
accidents and fatalities. Of these 81.9 % were due to driver’s fault. We are aware of the lackadaisical working of RTOs
in issuing of driving licenses and other matters but there is hardly any report
of activists demonstrating there. Where is the anger against the system
directly responsible for killing of more than 350 young people every day? Is it
not a graver and real menace than other magnified perceived threats?

For
the problem to have become so menacing our apathy and silence is responsible.
More responsible than the common man are the self proclaimed intellectuals. Even
among them those who are recognized and established in their respective fields
as well as those who are involved in social activism have a greater responsibility
simply because of the fact that their anger becomes news and the grief of
common man goes unnoticed.

Is
it not time they asked some honest questions to their own self — "Is my
anger due to perceived threat to my comfort zone?", “Am I angry because a
part of the society appears to be going against the utopian ideology, I have
convinced my self, to be aimed at greater good of mankind?”, “Is my anger
driven by impatience to see some desired healthy changes in social environment
that become acceptable only with due passage of time?”, “Is my anger not
inspired by the prevailing political winds that tend to magnify, with the help
of TRP driven media, any and all stray incidents into threats to the society at
large?”, “Is my anger not misplaced as I
consider that the perceived threat to me is greater than the real threat to the
man on street which, if not tackled on priority, is sure to engulf me too?”

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Even
kids are moved by the problem of the common man and they are breaking their
piggy-banks to help the needy a little.

Do
our political leaders, the self-shouting messiahs of the poor, have no
sentiments left to get inspired by this gesture of school going children?

Why
not, for a change, get inspired and break somedinosaury-banksthey
command and start counters to help their voters in these times of need?

Are
they devoid of the simple commonsense that if they advance the date of opening
their coffers at election time by a few fortnights they will not only get
additional votes in return of their act of public service but also clear the
blot of being insensitive? Another added benefit will be the satisfaction of
hitting the ruling party where it hurts most.

Why
they consider it to be their duty to simply shout loud in their lip service of
showing sympathy for suffering masses?

Why
they work hard to add to the woes of masses by instigating them to agitate
against a step they openly approve of?

Why not change this attitude that has
been in vogue for decades that on pretext of helping masses Netas spend money
on protests and rallies and public meetings and themselves and their goons?

That is the image of our Netas in the eyes of the man on
the street; and can any amount of logical sounding illogical support, from
intellectuals ensconced in high places and the partisan media, change that public
perception?

Why do they conveniently forget that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi lived and
suffered like common people of this country and never needed tons of money or
herds of goons to influence masses to gain popularity?

Thursday, April 7, 2016

This is for those who hide
behind debates, suppress their inner voice and condone their guilt by providing
mere lip service to the suffering masses of Latur and other drought and water
scarcity ridden areas.